


careful, darling (you know what a Deal can do)

by friendly_ficus



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Non-Chronological, Spoilers up to episode 91, i just have a lot of Feelings about Vex alright, just a messy narrative tied up in my emotions, slight AU, taking liberties with the backstory, there are deals and there are Deals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-03
Updated: 2017-06-03
Packaged: 2018-11-08 14:47:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11083815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/friendly_ficus/pseuds/friendly_ficus
Summary: A series of deals Vex'ahlia has been offered. (A series of Deals that Vex has made.)





	careful, darling (you know what a Deal can do)

**Author's Note:**

> I just have a lot of Feelings about Vex. That is the soil this fic grew from.

  Her brother says, “Let’s leave this place,” and she says “Deal.” They vanish into the night and run for home, for Mother, because they are still young and so, so sure. (Years later, Vax will ask her why they are still with Vox Machina and she will think of this deal and the response will be less sure.)

\---

  Merchant after merchant, an endless string of people with the same faces and hands that don’t fight but do count gold and silver and copper, which is what they usually have (and money is blood, is bleeding, she knows they need it to survive just as they need their hearts to beat.) These are people she understands, and she knows how to tilt her head so she looks younger or older or more in control of the situation than they are. She knows that she can bend them with a wink or a smile or a “Darling-” There are deals and there are Deals, and if Vex does not know precisely what the difference is, at least she knows there is one.

  (It is no secret, faith in the gods does not play a large role in Vex’ahlia’s life. Dependency on the divine is anathema. Here is the secret: Vex knows deep in her bones that a Deal is a holy thing. Perhaps it is the only holy thing. She knows that they must not be broken. She knows that they should not be made.) A better price is a little thing, a wink is even less. Vex avoids jobs that require full names and blood as a signing agent. (And they are offered, they are offered. Old and young, alien and familiar, they offer her anything she could want. But she knows, and she refuses every time. They never give their names, and they always ask her own. She thinks that this is normal, that everyone gets these visitors and has these conversations. Destiny, they always speak of destiny and futures and Deals. But once, walking, Vax did not even see the young woman. He walked right through her. Vex glanced back, and saw dark eyes and a grin with too many teeth. _Alright_ , she thought, and continued walking. _Maybe this isn’t quite ordinary._

_\---_

Home is ashes, because this is how the story goes, and so Vex’ahlia the twin makes a promise (which is like a Deal with the world. It is not a little thing. It settles over her.) She studies and learns and seeks and consumes, sees a possibility for vengeance if she can just close the gap. Dragons, she tells herself, there is a world where dragons fear _me_. Vex’ahlia, up to her eyes in information about creatures who would crush her and burn her and rend her beyond repair- Vex’ahlia makes a Deal with the world: this dragon will resurface, and then it will die. She does not need confirmation, she will carry both ends of this bargain if she must. (This Deal shapes her the way they all do, and years later when Thordak is nothing but blood and scars and bad memories- Vex will stand in a world where _a dragon has run from her._ She will not remember the wording of her contract, but even in the tense search for the Raishan she will feel the deep sense of satisfaction that comes with a Deal upheld.)

\---

  When Percival Fredrickstein Von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III first meets Vex’ahlia, twin and adventurer, he gives her all the coin he has. She says, “Of course, darling.” (She thinks, _Wait, no this isn’t a deal- but what does it mean when a man puts his blood in your hands without question- is this a trap, is this a Deal-_ ) The others can see him, at least, but there is something at the edges of his shadow, something she can only see when she is not looking at him. But he becomes her friend and, well, everyone has their quirks.

\---

  In a forest (it was always going to be here, in a forest- the things that change Vex’ahlia always find her when she should be safe) Vex’ahlia makes a Deal with herself: survive. There are two people that stand in the way of the bargain. (Nothing stands in the way of a Deal, not one Vex’ahlia makes. Ideally, nothing stands in the way of a Deal _anyone_ makes.) This is her first time killing someone, young and alone in the forest, with a dying bear (a dying mother) watching her. This Deal gives her Trinket, gives her a bear who is something between child and friend but certainly loves her unconditionally. (This Deal is one of the few she breaks, and she breaks it twice: in a cold tomb and cave full of treasure. Vex of Vox Machina will shrug off the _Wrong_ that clings to her, will call it a side effect of dying. She will break the Deal and put it aside again, because though she wants to survive she is willing to die. She will feel _Wrong_ but not remorseful. There is an element of sacrilege, she feels as if she has betrayed the last true holy thing and a part of herself, and the _Wrong_ of it aches. She would do it again.)

\---

  In the Feywild, Percy tells her to trust the satyr and so all of Vox Machina makes a Deal (because Vex of Vox Machina trusts Percy of Vox Machina who once gave her everything he had and has continued to give, because she knows what it means to hold his blood in her hands but cannot yet give him her own) with a stranger. Percy comes to her later and says _charmed_ and Vex considers breaking this Deal by killing the other half of it. If she were less wary of the consequences that could fall on her family, the consequences this place would _make_ , she would find an arrow just for Garmelie. (The last time Vex ignored imbalance in her own dealings, dragons ruined the world. She will not rush to break this one. And perhaps she is desperate, perhaps she wants to leave something sacred intact. It was a Deal, she felt the binding.) (But he charmed Percy, went into his mind and changed things, and Vex will not forgive this.)

\---

  Percy tells them “You don’t have to help” and Vex, twin and adventurer and friend says “Of course we will” and so a deal is struck. (Vex has made her rules, you do not need to make Deals with family. You do not bind them.) Whitestone is a haze of corruption and they make another deal and so Anna Ripley gets away and then everything goes very wrong very quickly- Percy is holding his gun and insisting “take her name off” and it’s so cold in Whitestone and the shadows are so dark she can feel them growing. Percy made a bad Deal and it has brought them to this moment. They fight the demon ( _the contract-holder_ , Vex’ahlia thinks, _and who is the wounded party?_ ) and Scanlan gets the gun away from Percy, destroys it and breaks the contract, but something sticks in Vex, something about the Deal. Percy’s Deal seems unfinished. (Percy used that gun for a long time, had been in the process of finishing his end of the arrangement- there is a difference between a clean break and a partially completed contract. She is not sure what to do, what deal to make to protect Percy, how to make sure that mask stays _off_. She realizes, then, how far she has tilted her deals to favor more than her brother. Vox Machina is, somehow, her family. It isn’t a Deal, except for all the ways it is. There is no binding and yet they are all bound.)

\---

 The Chroma Conclave arrives and the world slips out of its cycle of deals upon Deals and becomes a burning mess. Vex, twin and adventurer and friend thinks, for a fraction of a second, that this is the world coming down on her for all the deals she’s made in favor of Vox Machina. Delilah Briarwood said “I broke the world for us.” Is Vex of Vox Machina, Vex the friend and twin and adventurer, is she like that? How far has she pushed the balance of things, how many deals has she twisted, she wonders for a moment if she is something that could become Delilah. She wonders if there is a limit to what she will do. Are the dragons her burden to bear? She has tipped the scales so far... is this them tipping back the other way? (This is our fault, she thinks, _this is my fault_. _What sort of Deal have I broken, to bring us all here._ )

\---

  In her father’s house in Syngorn, Percival Fredrickstein Von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III makes Vex’ahlia of Vox Machina into a Baroness. Baroness of the Third House of Whitestone and Grand Mistress of the Grey Hunt, to be exact. (Syldor looks... almost _impressed_ , and Vex hates how much she still craves that approval. Here, in the house where she has declared that she would rip his blood from her veins if the feat were possible- and still somehow she is a child looking up at an uncaring father.) “Is it real?” And Percy says “yes.” And, well, this is not a Deal ( _you do not bind your family_ ) or even a deal, it is a gift. Percy, who has given her his blood is giving her a connection to his city, without asking for anything in return. (And by now she knows that where she sees money as blood and a means of survival, Percy sees Whitestone as a reason to _live_. He has given her a piece of himself once again, and she thinks _maybe, maybe, soon-_ )

\---

   _The world is Wrong, it broke the Deal it made with me at birth._ Vax is lying on the floor of a temple, and Vex has no faith in the gods. She still needs something sacred, something holy. She can make a Deal, a Deal is the only truly holy thing. “I am here today because of a bargain my brother made with you,” there is a pressure building in her throat and the words do not want to leave her mouth. (Holy things are rare to Vex, but she is not a fool. She knows the danger of comparing oneself to a god. She aches and burns and thinks- _The world is Wrong but I can fix it._ ) “So I know you like to make Deals as much as I do.” Then it is only the business of terms and agreements, familiar ground for any negotiator. She knows something the Raven Queen wants, if gods want anything. Here is a fact: the world is _Wrong_ without Vax in it. To sweeten the pot, to balance the Deal, Vex offers the utter destruction of a being that aims to kill a god. This is easy, this is not worth half of Vax. (Here is the secret: In the world where this Deal is not accepted and upheld, where her brother does not gasp awake in the temple, there is a version of Vex’ahlia that is silent as the ship sails back to Emon. This Vex’ahlia steps into the nearest tavern and looks for her old conversation partners. She knows more about destiny and fate than she did in the past. This Vex’ahlia gives her name and her blood and her soul for her brother. Lucky, then, that a Deal is made. Vex’ahlia has a rule, you do not bind your family. There is a world where she breaks that rule.) Vex’ahlia, twinnie and Stubby and sister calls out, “What say you?” She dares the Raven Queen to refuse her. This is the Deal of a lifetime. This is a Deal that could take a lifetime. _The world is Wrong,_ she knows, _the world is Wrong so **give him back to me.**_ It settles across her shoulders, this Deal, and it is heavy and it is worth it.

\---

  Thordak runs, Thordak _runs_ and Vax kills him anyway. This is what victory tastes like, this is a world where dragons fear her. For a moment, this is _Right_ in a way so much of the world has been _Wrong_. She made a Deal with the world: this dragon will die. She upheld her end. The world repaid her in kind. This is satisfaction. A chord composed of perfect notes, ringing in her head. Is this what Pike feels in her temple? If Sarenrae feels anything like this, Vex understands the appeal.

\---

  Scanlan leaves and it isn’t like he’s breaking a Deal ( _you do not bind your family_ ) with her or something. (Except in all the ways it is, in the way ‘family’ is a promise and a promise is a Deal with the whole world. Here is the secret: you do not bind your family because you should not need to.) She takes off her hat. It is a small revenge, an innocent deal broken, and it gives her no satisfaction. She wonders if Scanlan saw her as an unproven ally, she wonders if he was right to think so. _Yes_ , she thinks, _yes_. There is an empty space, now, pulsing with resentment and anger. Vex of Vox Machina knows, her family is her heart. She hears an echo of Scanlan’s voice in the Saundor-tree. This time she is thinking _will he come back?_ And it whispers, _Nope._ It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. How can pain like this not be _Wrong_? How can it not be unholy?

\---

  In the Feywild, leaving Syngorn behind them Vox Machina ventures deeper, deeper, deeper and Vex knows, Vex the Ranger knows, the forest is sick. Darkness drips from the trees and it all feels so _unclean_ , and not in the way nature is meant to feel. (She tells herself that the Feywild is not natural, that maybe this is how it always feels. But tacky and dark and dripping- the sickness reminds her of blood in the firelight of a camp in a different forest, alone. A knife, and the first time she ever killed.) The disease, the shadow, whatever it is... it is wrong.

  Here is the truth: Saundor knows her. Despite her protests, despite her _self_ , Saundor sees some secret shadow in Vex’ahlia’s eyes. And the things he _says_. Cruel things, manipulative things, true things. He cuts to the heart of her and thinks that he can take it, thinks that she will hand it to him still-beating in exchange for a _bow_. This is the real moment Saundor knows her, this is the tipping point: he offers her a Deal. He already knows her name. She thinks _oh, we are the same_ , and she feels cold and alone. (The Feywild is sick around her, dripping with illness and the forest is dark and there is a knife in her hands and there is _blood on it_ and the bear is dying, dying, and the poachers are _dead-_ ) But Saundor calls her mine and wants to own and corrupt, expects her to give him that which she is and Vex cannot. This is a Deal she cannot make. “Are we still pretending to like this fuck?” And Scanlan says, “Nope.” That’s enough, and Vex knows, Vex of Vox Machina knows, she is not alone. She says her heart belongs to someone else and it is true. This is her family, these are the people she stacked deal after Deal for, and Saundor thinks he can _take them from her_ \- they are her heart. They are her heart. Vex will not give them up for anything. She fires an arrow into his chest. No promises, no Deals.

\---

  Vex’ahlia, twin and friend and Baroness and lover and family walks into Hell and feels no temptation. She knows the devils cannot offer her better Deals than the ones she has already made.


End file.
